This is probably the number one question that I get asked about my photography, so I thought I'd try to share a bit of basic information about "blurry backgrounds" for anyone wanting to have a go with their own kid's photos.
Blurry backgrounds in its simplest terms means that the background is out of focus. This is sometimes referred to as bokeh. While something being out of focus in a photo might not sound like a great idea, in portrait photography it can be incredibly useful and effective as it means that the eye isn't distracted by the background at all, and instead your eye is drawn to the subject of the photo - the child. For example, in this photo of my daughter the background is completely out of focus, all you can see is a lovely mix of colours.
A shallow depth of field means that only a small plane of the photo will be in sharp focus, and a large amount will be blurred. For my style of photography I almost always use a shallow depth of field, so that often only my subject is in focus (although it should be noted that if you focus on an object, anything that is the same distance from the camera as that object will also be in focus). But if I'm out doing landscape photography in my beautiful county of Yorkshire for example, I would want the opposite - everything to be in sharp focus.
Before I go into more detail about how to get the background nice and blurry, a quick word on focusing, especially when you are aiming for a shallow depth of field. If possible with your camera, I recommend using spot focusing, so that you are choosing exactly what the camera focuses on. I almost always focus on the eyes. If you let the camera decide, you might find that it hasn't actually chosen your intended subject as it's focus. Instead of a nice blurry background, you may find you have a blurry child!
There are 3 main ways that you can alter depth of field - and remember, for the blurry background we are trying to make it as shallow as possible...
1. Open your aperture as wide as possible. This relates to the f number, and the lower the number the wider open the aperture is. On most of my lenses f1.8 is the widest I can go, although on other lenses it is common to be f3.5 or f4.5. Whatever your lowest number is, choose that! This also lets in more light which means you can have a faster shutter speed, which is always useful when photographing quick-moving children! This is the most effective way of blurring the background. If you're unsure how to control your aperture, the easiest way is usually on "A" mode - this stands for aperture priority and allows you to select your f number and the camera does the rest for you.
2. Get closer to your subject. The closer you are to your subject, the shallower the depth of field.
3. Move your subject further away from the background. This extra distance means that the background will be more out of focus as it is further away from the object you are focusing on.
While number 1 requires you to have a camera which allows you to choose your own settings to some extent, if your camera does not allow this you can still use tips 2 and 3 with any camera. Although I should mention that depth of field is also linked to the size of the sensor in your camera, with the general rule of thumb being the larger the sensor the shallower the depth of field you can achieve. So on compact cameras you might find that no matter what you do the background won' t blur as much as you'd like, but you can still follow the steps above and make it a blurry as possible for that camera.
And that's really all there is to it! If you found this useful and would like to see more tips then please head over to my Facebook page and remember to hit "like"! Thanks!
Blurry backgrounds in its simplest terms means that the background is out of focus. This is sometimes referred to as bokeh. While something being out of focus in a photo might not sound like a great idea, in portrait photography it can be incredibly useful and effective as it means that the eye isn't distracted by the background at all, and instead your eye is drawn to the subject of the photo - the child. For example, in this photo of my daughter the background is completely out of focus, all you can see is a lovely mix of colours.
A shallow depth of field means that only a small plane of the photo will be in sharp focus, and a large amount will be blurred. For my style of photography I almost always use a shallow depth of field, so that often only my subject is in focus (although it should be noted that if you focus on an object, anything that is the same distance from the camera as that object will also be in focus). But if I'm out doing landscape photography in my beautiful county of Yorkshire for example, I would want the opposite - everything to be in sharp focus.
Before I go into more detail about how to get the background nice and blurry, a quick word on focusing, especially when you are aiming for a shallow depth of field. If possible with your camera, I recommend using spot focusing, so that you are choosing exactly what the camera focuses on. I almost always focus on the eyes. If you let the camera decide, you might find that it hasn't actually chosen your intended subject as it's focus. Instead of a nice blurry background, you may find you have a blurry child!
There are 3 main ways that you can alter depth of field - and remember, for the blurry background we are trying to make it as shallow as possible...
1. Open your aperture as wide as possible. This relates to the f number, and the lower the number the wider open the aperture is. On most of my lenses f1.8 is the widest I can go, although on other lenses it is common to be f3.5 or f4.5. Whatever your lowest number is, choose that! This also lets in more light which means you can have a faster shutter speed, which is always useful when photographing quick-moving children! This is the most effective way of blurring the background. If you're unsure how to control your aperture, the easiest way is usually on "A" mode - this stands for aperture priority and allows you to select your f number and the camera does the rest for you.
2. Get closer to your subject. The closer you are to your subject, the shallower the depth of field.
3. Move your subject further away from the background. This extra distance means that the background will be more out of focus as it is further away from the object you are focusing on.
While number 1 requires you to have a camera which allows you to choose your own settings to some extent, if your camera does not allow this you can still use tips 2 and 3 with any camera. Although I should mention that depth of field is also linked to the size of the sensor in your camera, with the general rule of thumb being the larger the sensor the shallower the depth of field you can achieve. So on compact cameras you might find that no matter what you do the background won' t blur as much as you'd like, but you can still follow the steps above and make it a blurry as possible for that camera.
And that's really all there is to it! If you found this useful and would like to see more tips then please head over to my Facebook page and remember to hit "like"! Thanks!
